Like most tastings, we started with a fully blind wine:
Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs 2003
Figgy yet light and elegant nose. The mousse is small and intense. The palate has wide fruit, nice acids and minerals and an interminable aftertaste. Very Champagne-like and very nice.
Then we tasted half blind the vintages 78, 80, 85, 86 with one fully blind wine thrown in and as an appendix a fully open 1995:
Cheval Blanc 1985
A lovely nose: leafy and spicy, beautifully savoury, slightly green in a refreshing rather than underripe way. The palate was ripe and fruity with noticable acidity which kept the whole fresh and light on its feet. Lovely. My favourite.
Cheval Blanc 1986
The biggest disappointment of the Chevals, yet still a lovely wine. The nose was a touch dilute at first, but opened up to become typically Cheval-like in its spiciness and leafiness. The palate was also a bit foursquare but otherwise fine. Though nice, this wasn't such a lovable wine as the others.
Cheval Blanc 1980
Supposedly the worst of the lot according to all reviews. But this bottle exceeded all expectations. The nose was open and à point and with all the spicy leafiness I expect to find and a delicious red toned fruit. Sure it isn't so poised or elegant as the others, but it isn't at all dilute either nor underripe. It is a bit soft and simple for sure, but the Cheval stamp is in the wine - this is very good wine even in the company of these more exalted vintages.
Joker: Santa Rita Casa Real 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon (Chile)
Darkest colour of all. The nose was honeyed, oaky, a bit too sweet and raisiny, yet with a cassis jam note to it. The palate was big and sweet and fairly complex - as Chilean wines go, this is pretty damn good even though I thought it a bit too sweet and too high in alcohol (I didn't note down the % though - sorry).
Cheval Blanc 1978
A lovely wine. Fully mature, but stood up well in the glass over several hours. It had all the savoury yet sexy fruit I hope to find in the wine and is red toned in its fruit. The palate is sweetly fruity yet savoury and has nice acidity and an interminable aftertaste. Lovely.
Cheval Blanc 1995
At first the nose was odd: lactic and oaky and it was impossible to see anything underneath. After a couple hours it opened up and the oak calmed down and it became a very nice - albeit young - wine, somewhat odd compared to my other experiences with the wine in that it has a darker tone to its fruit, yet with all that savoury, Cab F like leafiness married to the spice. Tannic yet promising. Long and savoury and acidic. Probably will be very nice.
And what would a tasting be without some blind wines:
Thorin-Chambert Clos de Vougeot 1966
Light orange colour. The nose was savoury and earthy and fully mature yet had great pinosity and a very ripe strawberry note to it. The palate had a great nervosity and acidity to it, yet it also had copious fruit though it is light and elegant. Long and earthy aftertaste, and though I might like a small mineral component in there also, I still thought this a delight. This isn't the greatest Burgundy I've had (far from it), but it is always a special treat to have a Burgundy that is at its optimum age. This was wonderful.
Quinta do Crasto Douro Reserva Old Vines 2004
At first it was nicely vegetal. It became awfully spoofy and international in style. Boring.
Clos Ste Hune 1997
Anis. Weird and flawed, but how?
Zind-Humbrecht Riesling Herrenweg de Turkheim 2001
Deep gold. The nose is lovely and petrolly, with pure Riesling fruit. It isn't terribly mineral, however. The palate is thick and forceful and dry and has much more minerality than the nose. It does seem a bit more advanced than I would expect from a young Alsace Riesling. Or does this site mature fast? I have usually found ZH a bit cumbersome and therefore tiring to drink, but I was happy that this wine wasn't too heavy and was IMO typical Alsace.
Jadot Ch. St. Jacques Moulin-à-Vent 2002
Not as good as my previous bottle of this ever lovable Beaujolais. This was a bit simple and sweet and lacked the earthy nuance I hoped to see. The palate was also a bit short. It was pleasurable and even good, but wasn't the astonishingly lovely wine I expected from my previous experience.
-O-